In which the random, trashy, pop-cultural musings of Mel are displayed in all their superficial glory.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Urban myths update: It's a g-g-g-ghost! Last night at dinner I was asking people if they had any more Melbourne urban myths, because I was quite disappointed with the response to my last post. People mentioned a couple of spooooooky ghost stories! Wooooooo! (That last was supposed to be a spooky ghost noise, but it loses something in transcription, I think you'll agree.)

The Ghost in the Rivoli: According to Audrey, there is a ghost in the toilets at the Rivoli cinema in Camberwell. The Rivoli is an Art Deco-style cinema that was first opened in 1940, although another cinema also called the Rivoli had operated on nearby Burke Rd since the 1920s. When I was a kid, the Rivoli was a shabby, old-fashioned cinema with only two screens. It was refurbished in 2000 and is now very schmick and has eight screens. Anyway, Audrey claims that years ago, someone died in the toilets at the Rivoli, and the ghost can now be heard laughing or crying (she wasn't sure which). Audrey claims her mother-in-law heard the ghost once.

Then someone else said, "So are the toilets still in the same place since the renovations?" I would have thought they would be - what a pain to have to relocate all the plumbing. But I can personally verify something very spooky about the Rivoli toilets. When we went there a few years back to see one of the Lord of the Rings movies (The Two Towers, perhaps), I sat on the toilet seat and it was spongy! It felt so wrong! It looked like an ordinary toilet seat but it was some kind of vinyl-covered foam rubber. What the fuck is with that?

The Rob Roy Ghost: Then Charmaine mentioned that she'd heard there is a ghost at the Rob Roy Hotel in Fitzroy. Before it was a pub, it was apparently a rooming house, and an artist using an upstairs room as a studio felt the presense of a ghost. That was the end of Charmaine's story, so I was very disappointed. I have not been able to corroborate this story using Google, which doubled my disappointment.

I saw a manifestation in the ladies toilet upstairs at the Rivoli Cinemas in about 1994. I saw a puff of white smoke under the cubicle - I thought someone was smoking but no one else was in the toilets. While I was washing my hands I looked in the mirror and behind me could see the smoke get bigger until it formed into the shape of a person. There didn't seem to be anything that could have caused it. I watched it at until it dissipated. It was about 3pm in the afternoon on a Saturday. I know what I saw was real. It was the shape of a person. I have never been back to the Rivoli.

Pretty sure the toilets at the Rivoli are still in the same place as pre-refit. Certainly the men's loo has most of the original fittings.

Oh, as to haunted buildings: the Builders' Arms in Fitzroy is reputedly haunted. Back when I used to DJ there I had a couple of experiences that were genuinely unsettling and eerie. I'll tell you about them over a drink sometime...